Pages

ATTENTION IPAD USERS!Apple doesn't like listing me as "Will Shakespeare (poetry blogger)"to differentiate me from the other guy, although everybody else does.They took my first book but now won't take new ones. (Go figure.)Since Smashwords distributes my books to Apple anyway, just go to my Smashwords author page and download EPUBs from there.Smashwords provides samples of my books also.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Dog Collared (aka Newton’s Dog Chases Schrödinger's Cat)

The puppy begins the experiment.
Its floppy ears and floppy tongue
Whip wildly like streamers in a gale
As it bounds furiously toward the cat.
An overweight scientist lurches awkwardly behind it,
Increasingly aware that two legs
Are less efficient than four…
And that the cat appears
Less threatened by his approach than the dog’s.
At last he stops, hunched over,
Both hands on his knees and
Wheezing loudly as his spaniel
Closes on its spectral prey.

At last the cat streaks up a tree trunk.
The spaniel braces its front paws
Against the trunk,
Defiantly daring the little bugger
To face it in a fair fight.
Dr. Wheezer sees his chance.
He creeps slowly toward the tree
(Slowly is the only speed he has left)
And dives for the end of the leash
Not attached to the dog.

At that very moment the spaniel
Spies a second cat on the ground…
Or is it the same cat?
While Dr. Wheezer ponders this paradox,
Physics take over as
An immovable owner meets
An irresistible desire for catburger.
Dr. Wheezer’s shoulders ache from the jerk
And Puppy’s rear end rapidly orbits
Its front end.
Both bodies are now at rest,
A state of inertia greatly appreciated
By Dr. Wheezer.

Schrödinger's Cat may or may not still be in the tree.
Newton’s First Law of Motion asserts that
A puppy in motion tends to remain in motion
Until acted on by an external owner’s force.
However, the puppy conserves no energy
During its enthusiastic licking
Of Dr. Wheezer’s face.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Will's Books (click images for info)

Resident Bard

Will Shakespeare claims to be a formerly famous but now unemployed poet and playwright—a result of the poor economic climate which drove his beloved Globe Theater into bankruptcy. Shortly thereafter he moved from Stratford-on-Avon to North Carolina, where he reinvented himself as a Web poet and is attempting to resurrect his career. He’ll try almost any type of writing, funny or serious, as long as it’s in verse!